FOREIGN NURSERY STOCK INSPECTION 



1077 



ard for adequate professional training is a 5-year college 

 course based on the sciences of botany, physics, mathe- 

 matics, and political economy. 



The work of a forester may begin in the solitude of 

 the wilderness, with the survey, topographic map, and 

 estimate of timber, but it comes back to contact with 

 men. The purpose of forest management is to serve 

 mankind, and in working out these problems of service 

 not merely for next year but for decades to come, the 

 forester acquires a breadth of vision and an insight into 

 economic laws which make for the building of character. 

 His profession demands of him a rugged physique and 

 ability to endure hardship, yet lifts him out of the monot- 

 onous drudgery of manual labor. No calling makes 

 such varied demands on the individual, or so stimulates 

 all-around development. The forester, in order to rise 

 to the top of his profession, must be able by close- obser- 

 vation to analyze the living forces of nature as expressed 

 in the growth of trees and the survival of seedlings, and 



must control these forces to secure the ends desired. 

 This requires scientific bent of mind and training. He 

 must have an intelligent appreciation of engineering prob- 

 lems which are often the key to the use of forest re- 

 sources, and must be alive to the economic needs of 

 communities, that he may shape the forest management 

 to supply them. But he must also be a public leader, 

 to secure co-operation in fire protection, create sentiment 

 favorable to the establishment and continuance of forest 

 policies, and secure beneficial legislation. 



The foresters of America face a task which is only 

 just begun. They have, however, shown themselves to be 

 equal to their responsibilities, and to possess a knowledge 

 of their common aims and ideals. Each member of this 

 new profession strives to wrest from nature the control 

 of her life-giving processes, and from man the recogni- 

 tion that foresight, conservation, and .thrift must take 

 the place of unrestrained exploitation of natural wealth 

 in timber if our national prosperity is to continue. 



FOREIGN NURSERY STOCK INSPECTION 



n^HE main arguments of objectors to plant quarantine 

 * No. 37 are that either no pests are brought in on 

 such imported stock or that thorough inspection abroad 

 would eliminate any undesirable insects. There is no 

 question but that the chief exporting foreign governments 

 have given to their nursery stock the best inspection 

 which human skill and science can afford. Failures are 

 due to the human equation and to conditions not subject 

 to change, which make inspection and certification insuf- 

 ficient safeguards. 



The inadequacy of such inspection since 191 2, when 

 it became operative, is shown by the findings resulting 

 from reinspection of imported material at destination in 

 this country. Data gathered by the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture show that there have been re- 

 ceived from Holland and Germany 3,161 infested ship- 

 ments, involving 486 kinds of insect pests. Many of 

 these intercepted insects are not known to be established 

 anywhere in this country and numbers of them, if estab- 

 lished, would undoubtedly become important farm, gar- 

 den, or forest pests. 



Under the system of inspection which has been estab- 

 lished in the principal exporting countries there is little 

 excuse for the passing and certification of stock infested 

 with the egg masses of the gipsy moth or with the large 

 nnd rather conspicuous leafy winter nests of the larva; 

 of the brown-tail moth. In point of fact, however, dur- 

 ing the period in which the highest possible grade of 

 inspection has been enforced, no less than 52 different 

 shipments of plants from foreign countries have been 

 found to be infested with egg masses of the gipsy moth 

 or larval nests of the brown-tail moth. Three of these 

 were from Japan and the others were from France, 

 Holland, or Belgium. 



Unfortunately, these records do not necessarily com- 

 prise the total entry of these two pests. They represent 

 merely the instances of infestation discovered by rein- 



spection on this side. There is, therefore, the possibility 

 that one or both of these pests have already gained foot- 

 hold at one point or another in the United States and 

 have not yet been discovered and reported. In this 

 connection, it should be remembered that the gipsy moth 

 was 20 years in Massachusetts before it was known, and 

 this in the face of the fact that the infestation started in 

 a thickly populated suburb of Boston. 



That foreign inspection gives no real security is suf- 

 ficiently shown in this record relating to two insects for 

 which there is little, if any, excuse for overlooking. 



The establishment of these two insects in different 

 parts of the United States would soon lead to their gen- 

 eral spread throughout the country. What this would 

 mean in cost and damage and also in human suffering 

 can hardly be estimated. Only a portion of the New 

 England States is now invaded by these insects, and yet 

 the expenditure in clean-up and control work alone 

 amounts to more than a million dollars a year by the 

 States concerned, in addition to aiding Federal appro- 

 priation of upward of $300,000 annually. 



An important consideration in relation to the brown- 

 tail moth is that in addition to the actual damage to 

 deciduous forests, orchards and ornamental plantings, 

 the larval hairs which are shed and fill the air at the 

 time of the transformation of the insect to the chrysalis 

 stage have an intensely irritating or nettling character, 

 which causes a great deal of inflammation to the exposed 

 parts of the human skin, such as the neck, face, and 

 hands, and this irritation, in one or two known instances, 

 and perhaps in others, has been the cause of death by 

 affecting the lungs and leading to fatal cases of tubercu- 

 losis. Should the brown-tail moth reach the South and 

 Southwest this irritation to human beings would doubt- 

 less be increased by reason of greater warmth and by 

 the moisture of the skin and consequent greater likeli- 

 hood of adherence of the larval hairs. 



